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On other people’s pets.

November 6, 2015

A rather unexpected choice of topic for my first post, you might ascertain. Yet, one which has been playing on my mind for some time now, and is frequently resurrected whenever I’m invited over to a fellow dog-owning household, and am greeted nose-to-crotch over the welcome mat.

Dogs hate kisses. This is a widely known fact.

A word of advice is to be highly cautious of anyone who professes themselves a dog hater. A cat-lover myself, I do see reason in feline-cynicism, as understandably not everyone clasps together their hands and coos at the priceless image of their kitten as it retches up a damp hairball on the freshly folded laundry of their significant other. Not everyone is willing to submit to the prospect of sharpened claws sinking into your new pair of Wolford fishnets, at the abrupt reversal from devoted moggy, to brutal wildcat.
To qualify for the title of enduring cat lover, you tend more to side with admiration and amusement at the individually crafted nature held by cats. Dogs, en masse, are renowned for their unwavering love. You can shave them, pluck them, dye their fur a humiliating shade of hot pink as trending in Parisian poodles, and still they will gaze up at you with eyes so wide and brimming with love, they would curve into little heart shaped corneas, were this a cartoonised episode of Scooby-Doo, or Clifford. You only have to glance at the glowering furry eyebrows of Dan Bilzerian’s infamous Smuffball, to know that cats lack this unconditional and yielding infatuation with their owners, specifically when stripped of their hair and left with a running Mohican and chilly little flanks.

A step behind the subjugation of pets into these two categories, the stereotypes of the slobbering, gormless dog, and the sharp-witted, only vaguely amused cat (sadly rodents and budgerigars haven’t qualified for this post), is the perception of other people’s own pets. Of course we love our own furry adoptees. Admittedly, no dog is ever as loyal as the elated Lassie, starring in her own television series, nor is any cat as humorous as Garfield. Yet arguably, in the same fanciful style of heavily favourited tumblr quotes, and the tone your mother takes with you when sobbing over your acne, it is their little flaws which make them all the more lovable.
Obviously, unwavering obedience would be wonderful. This aside, I can’t help but smile whenever our veteran golden retriever turns a blind eye, and swivels her head away and pretends furiously not to hear the call for morning stroll, in hope of shifting off the middle aged tyre hanging at her sides. Similarly, I’m equally repulsed as gleeful over the trail of dead shrews and dormice, left peppered across the hallway each morning by my feline companion. Although the stains of loose tails and innards and intestines are revolting, and I pity the rising rodent death toll, I can’t help but feel a little appreciation (as according to a vague google search on cat psychology, this is my kitten’s way of confessing his undying love for me, or rather the hand that feeds).

Whilst I can stand these little imperfections in my own menagerie, I do struggle to plaster on a brave face and gently hustle an overfriendly lab away from my privates when greeted at the door. Similarly, it’s hard to see the attraction in a cat that saunters in at breakfast and teatime, and is otherwise absent from daytime grooming sessions, rather fond of roaming the outside gardens merrily under his own superveillance.
Yet, thinking back to my previous English house cats (may they rest in peace in the shallow graves I staked out in the garden, 21 a ripe old age for a moggy), and one habit of yowling constantly at three in the morning, followed by the doting attitude our household took to this custom, all these little shortcomings do make our pets more lovable. Perhaps this isn’t quite so easy to fathom when defending your nether region with a barrier of forearms, or plucking white hairs out of the jacket a friend’s cat has decided to nest and bear kittens within (asking for this garment back, when purposefully selected by the queen to bear her furry blessings, was shot down with a cagey stare). Still, imperfections aside, you love your pets like you would your grandma, no matter how many times one misses the litterbox, and the other snores during Question Time.